speeding up my eee pc

For the sake of privacy (as I am tired of having strange unknowns follow me on twitter), I have disabled the twitter feed in my previous post.

Recently, having completed all my assignments, I have been fiddling quite a bit with my eee pc in a bid to improve its performance without actually reformatting it. The previous additional and removal of several programs for work purposes, coupled with inherent flaws in win xp has left my eee pc rather weak with slow boot and shutdown times.

After trying several alternatives, here's what I have tested and proven to be useful:

Regedit
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1590&page=32
Follow the instructions and edit your registry so that win xp kills applications fast when shutting down.

Bootvis
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5034622.html
Run a boot+trace using Bootvis so as to optimize your boot time. Typically, this method can shave about 10-20% of your boot time.

Have fewer start-up programs
Adobe Reader and Windows Live Messenger are some programs that you probably won't need at start-up, so strike them off your startup list.

Modifying your desktop appearance
Turn off large icons, use windows classic, disable themes... just be old school and forget aesthetics.